Japanese two-wheeler giant Honda Motor Co recently announced major changes to its top management team for India unit, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI).
The company announced the appointment of Atsushi Ogata as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company with immediate effect. Ogata is also an Operating Executive at Honda Motor Co. Japan.
Ogata will be replacing Minoru Kato who headed the company’s India business for three years. Kato has now been elevated to Operating Executive and Chief Officer Life Creation Operation, Hona Motor Co. Japna. He will now be based in Japan.
Born in 1962, Ogata started his career in Honda Japan from 1985. In the year 2000, he moved to Europe as the General Manager of Motorcycle Sales Division in Honda Motor Europe Ltd. (HME) gaining experience in both HME’s northern and southern operation headquarters at Germany and France respectively over the next 6 years.
The next 9 years (2006 – 2015) saw him drive Honda two-wheeler sales in China in 2 of Honda joint-venture companies in the country. After being the General Manager in Sales Division of Sundiro Honda Co., Ltd (Shanghai, China) for first 4 years, he later became the President of Wuyang Honda Motor Co., (Guangzhou, China).
Next up in 2015, he returned to Japan as General Manager of Motorcycle Operation Office. In 2018, Mr. Ogata moved to Asian Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (Thailand) as the Director of Honda’s Regional Operations (Asia & Oceania region) for both motorcycle and power products business and was further elevated to Executive Director in the same profile in 2019.
Additionally, the company also notified several key changes at the top management level strengthening its Senior Leadership Team to strategically steward the brand towards market leadership in the disruptive future.
As part of this move, V Sridhar (earlier GVP & Director – Manufacturing, HMSI) is now further elevated as the Senior Director – Purchase, HMSI.
Other senior executives, Yadvinder Singh Guleria and Vinay Dhingra are now elevated to the Board of Directors of Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd.
Yadvinder Singh Guleria as the new Director, HMSI now has greater responsibilities with an additional charge of Customer Service, Logistics Planning & Control, Premium Motorcycle Business, Brand & Communication along with Sales & Marketing. Guleria was previously the Senior Vice – President Sales & Marketing, HMSI.
Similarly, Vinay Dhingra is also appointed as the new Director, HMSI with the added responsibility of Strategic Information System (SIS) along with General & Corporate Affairs. A veteran at Honda, Dhingra was previously the Senior Vice-President, General & Corporate Affairs in the company.
Parallelly, the company announced the retirement of two Directors after completing their respective tenures – Anupam Mohindroo (previously Director – Purchase, HMSI) and Harbhajan Singh (previously Director – General & Corporate Affairs, HMSI).
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